Google takes aim at social-media with Buzz

By IBT Staff Reporter On 02/09/10 AT 1:17 PM

Google said on Tuesday it's rolling out Google Buzz social tools that it hopes will be more useful than competitor options.

During a press-conference at Google's headquarters, executives characterized current social networks -- like Twitter and Facebook -- as sites high a signal-to-noise ratio that overwhelm users with useless information.

Product manager Todd Jackson called Buzz an entirely new world, as he described its tool that will let users connect, and also filter information it feels users would be most interested in.

The enhancements will be attached on to Google's Gmail email application and will allow users to share information within the application it self.

But the company made an effort to distance itself from competition, saying current social-media quickly overwhelms users with TMI -- too much information.

Because of this, Buzz technology will auto-follow users according to their preferences. Status updates from infrequent posters would be put at the bottom of a list, while things matching a patter of things users are interseted in would be placed higher.

It will also handle multi-media, public and private sharing, the company said.

Much of the interface will be integrated with Gmail's Inbox structure. Users will be able to access the new social-platform outside of Gmail also.

We are giving the ability to consume and create buzz in three new product experiences, said Vic Gundotra, VP of mobile engineering.

Mobile users will be able to access Buzz from Google's mobile home-page. The search-giant is also rolling out a new phone application that will work on Google phones, Nokia phones and Windows Mobile based phones.

Google maps will be updated with a new buzz-layer allowing users to post comments to the maps according to their physical location that other uses can read about.

While aimed at consumers, the company promised that it will roll out a version that is enterprise friendly with compliance and archiving also.

A small batch of users will be the first to test the product while Google says it public Gmail will be updated within a matter of days.

We're not launching this today because we think we're done, he notes. We're just getting started.